


saturn

by sagexbrush



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Dreams, F/M, PTSD, happy ending though I promise, post blood of olympus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 20:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7546755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagexbrush/pseuds/sagexbrush
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She designs them a house when he’s missing. It’s in-between the schoolwork and working on Leo’s dream of a ship, but it somehow makes her feel slightly better. Here’s a house, a house that she’s designed, for them, and if it’s etched onto paper, that means that it’s going to come true.<br/>.<br/>(percabeth, set mostly after blood of olympus)</p>
            </blockquote>





	saturn

**_i. you taught me the courage_ **

****

She designs them a house when he’s missing. It’s in-between the schoolwork and working on Leo’s dream of a ship, but it somehow makes her feel slightly _better_. Here’s a house, a house that she’s designed, for _them_ , and if it’s etched onto paper, which means that it’s _going_ to come true.

            It has to.

            She picks up a colored pencil that someone had named ocean, and colors in the front door. _Blue,_ she thinks, _because that’s what he would like._

She tucks the drawing under her pillow when she’s done, along with a dozen another notes about it’s structure, and it crinkles when she lays down her head to go to sleep that night.

            (She dreams about that house, but this time it’s real, and Percy’s standing in the doorway, waiting to welcome her home.)

 _ **ii.**_   _of stars_

****

She folds the drawing neatly and keeps it tucked in her pocket when they go to the Roman camp, and it feels like a rock in her pocket, bumping against the silver coin and a few golden drachmas, leftover from the many billions of iris messages she’d sent.

            She doesn’t show it to him yet, because she’s scared. She’s scared that he doesn’t want the same thing, that he’s going to reject her.

            Later, he tells her about his New Rome dreams, but the drawing is back in her room and she holds her tongue, instead burying her face in his shoulder, and slipping off into sleep.

            _it’s all going to be okay,_ her tired mind whispers to itself.

           

**_iii. before you left_ **

****

When she leaves him to go out on her own (to face the darkness, that _thing_ waiting for her) she considers giving him the drawing. It’s still tucked deep into her pocket, the creases growing soft, the paper looking likely to tear.

            _give it to him,_ a part of her brain shouts, as he looks at her with those sea colored eyes of his and a part of him seems to collapse.

            “You’re right,” he says, and she doesn’t even have time to remember _what_ she was right about. “Be safe.”

            She kisses him, but it feels like something around them is falling apart, or coming together.

            She keeps the drawing in her pocket. Maybe it will give her courage for what she was going to face.

            She turns to the darkness.

 

 _ **iv.**_   _how life carries on endlessly_

She falls.

            He falls with her.

            The picture in her pocket feels more important than ever, but she can’t reach down to grab it for fear of losing it to the wind howling around them.

            Besides, she thinks looking at it would make this all real. She buries her face in Percy’s neck, and wonders if that house with the blue door will ever be.

            _Maybe,_ she thinks, though it’s a sour thought, _maybe it’ll await us in Elysium._

Most of all she’s scared. Not of falling, or of what lies beneath them, though _gods_ know she should be – but more scared of the boy she’s clutching so tightly. She has someone that’s willing to fall into hell for her, and the scariest part is – she knew she would do the same.

            She’s half-sure it’s going to kill them in the end.

 _ **v.**_   _even after death_

****

They survive, but something inside them dies.

            During the battle, while they were trying to save the world _again_ , it had been easy to forget that had never happened. Now that’s it over, it hits her full force. All of her distractions are gone, ripped away from her by the simple passage of time, and she’s filled with a fear she didn’t know existed.

            The paper is torn, the lines smudgy from water, smeared, but it still holds together – feebly. She tapes up the seams and redraws the lines, but it’s not the same as it was before.

            She still sleeps with it under her pillow, but she puts it in a sheet protector so it doesn’t get anymore damage.

            She wishes she could put a sheet protector over herself.

            But makeup works for the dark stains under her eyes. Although there’s nothing to hide what’s _in_ her eyes, something dark and maddening. She sees it reflected in Nico and Percy’s eyes – but they don’t wear makeup, and she can see Percy’s ribs when he takes off his shirt to go swimming.

            She counts her own in the mirror.

            _it’s not the same as it was before._

_**vii.**   **with shortness of breath**_

****

Annabeth is staying at a boarding academy with an open campus, but a curfew. She sees Percy everyday after classes, and she eats dinner with the Jacksons once a week. Everything is falling into a sort of order.

            She still doesn’t sleep well, fear of waking up screaming and startling her roommate singing through her veins, but her appetite is coming back – bit by bit.

            Percy’s looking better too, she observes one day while they’re studying, he’s put on some weight and joined the swim team.

            She thinks they’re both getting better.

            Then, Sally Jackson calls her at one o clock in the morning, breathlessly, scared for _what_ Annabeth cannot say – _“Percy’s been sitting in the kitchen for an hour – he won’t move or say anything, but I wasn’t sure – “_

Annabeth thanks her lucky stars that she has a first floor dorm, and quietly shoves open the window. Her roommate won’t tell, she sneaks out to see her boyfriend half the nights. She closes it behind her, and tiptoes across the front of the school, waiting until she was a good two blocks away before she hailed a cab.

            It isn’t until she gets into the car that she realizes that she had grabbed the drawing of the house with the blue door. It’s clutched in her fingertips like it’s glued there, and when she looks down at it, it marvels her that this little piece of paper survived.

            _If this paper survived,_ she tells herself, _so can I._

She gets to the Jackson apartment at one thirty, to find Percy exactly where his Mom said he’d be, clutching a broken glass in his hand, blood dripping down from his palm and dripping onto the table. His eyes are lost, far away in some place full of terrors.

            She tries to pry the glass from his hand, but he holds it tighter, and more blood wells up.

            “Percy,” she whispers softly, “Percy it’s me. It’s Annabeth.”

            His breath hitches, and she wonders how many flashbacks he’s suffered alone in the dark.

            “How do we get out?” he whimpers, and this time, she successfully gets the broken glass from his hand and sets it behind her.

            “We’re already out,” she promises, “and I’d never lie to you, would I?”

            A tear slips down his cheek, “All I can see is shadows,” he whispers.

            She reaches out a hand to gently brush his cheek, “I know,” she sighs, “that’s all I can see anymore. But we’re not in the shadows anymore. Come back with me. Come back with me into the light.”

            His eyes begin to clear, and relief fills her stomach to the brim. She fights the impulse to clutch him to her, but instead keeps her hand on his face, and when Sally brings her a cloth, begins to clean out his hand.

            “Don’t you know better than to play with glass, Seaweed Brain?” she says, but any joking in the statement had faded out into exhaustion.

            When she looks up at his face however, she sees that tears are dripping down his face.

            “Oh Percy,” she says softly, “we’re a mess, aren’t we?”

            He loops his arms around her waist, and she doesn’t really care that he’s getting blood on her shirt as he pulls her close and begins to cry into her hair.

            She’s crying to, but not just because of what they’d been through, but because she was mourning who they used to be.

 

**_vii. you explained the infinite_ **

****

            The next day, he comes to their annual homework session, but this time she has a present.

            He tries to apologize, but she puts her finger to his lips and refuses to let him say whatever he wanted to say.

            “I have something for you,” she says, and pulls it out of her bag, it’s kind of a crumpled wreck.

            “What is this?” he asks, tracing the blue door.

            “I drew it when you were missing,” she says, “It’s a house I designed for the two of us.”

            “For us?” he asks, his eyes widening.

            “For us,” she promises, “I’ve kept it with me for a long time. It went through Tartarus too, somehow this little piece of paper survived.”

            He stares down at it, his fingers tracing every single aspect of it, carefully, delicately.

            “Survived,” he repeats the word, “Is that what we did?”

            “If this piece of paper can make it through, then _so can we_ ,” she promises, lying her hand over his trembling fingers and holding them still.

            “So can we,” he repeats, “so can we.”

            “So can we,” she mirrors, and he slips the drawing into his bag.

 

**_viii. how rare and beautiful_ **

****

He walks her as far as security, his hand clutching her’s like she’s his lifeline. Well, she considers, he’s her’s, so that’s only fitting.

            “It’s just for a couple of weeks,” she promises, and something in his eyes is painfully bright. Her father is waiting behind them, the promises of Boston ringing through the air, and despite everything, she’s _excited_.

            Percy isn’t. She can see it in the shadows under his eyes, proof that he hadn’t slept last night.

            “I’m going to miss you,” he says softly, and she leans up and kisses him. It’s a sweet kiss, full of yearning and love.

            “Me too,” she say just as soft.

            “Take this with you,” he says suddenly, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the drawing. It looks newer now, however, the lines slightly more wobbly.

            “You traced it?” she wonders, and he smiles sheepishly.

            “That way,” he says, “each of us can have one.”

            She kisses him again, more passionately, not even really caring that her father’s watching.

_**x.** _ _it is to even exist_

****

She’s been thrust into this world of Norse gods, and she feels like she’s lied to Percy. _No quests,_ they had both promised, but that promise had shattered – and her phone nor Iris Messages were working.

            She was starting to feel panicked, miles and miles away, stranded in a foreign place without even his voice to comfort her.

            It’s when she remembers the drawing that he’d given her, still tucked and folded in her jeans pocket. She pulls it out, the clumsy lines slightly crooked, the black sharpie slightly smeared. But the blue colored door is the same, and she notices that he’s added a mailbox in front. _The Jacksons_ it reads in his messy handwriting, and something in her chest squeezes.

            “What’s that?” Magnus asks, and she tucks the drawing back in it’s place.

            “A reminder,” she answers.

 

 _ **xi.**_   _i couldn’t help but ask, for you to say it all again_

****

She manages to get one text message through to Sally, announcing her homecoming (two months after she’d left.). Her Father insisted that he had smoothed things over with the school as long as she got caught up when she got back.

            She leaves Magnus with a hug and a promise to _call her if the world starts to end again_ and feels a blissful sense of relief when she gets on the plane. She’s going _home_.

            She touches her pocket where her drawing is, and rests her head against the plane window. _I’m coming home Percy,_ she tells him in her head, wondering if he’s going to be angry.

            She hopes not. All she wants is for him to sweep her up into his arms and say _we’re together_ because that was all that _mattered_ anymore.

            He is waiting for her once she passes security. His hair is longer, he’s more filled out, and he looks reasonably well rested. He has a beanie perched on his head and doesn’t see at her first. He instead bounces on the balls of his feet, looking for her above the crowd.

            She fights the urge to cry and instead runs towards him. He sees her and his entire face lights up, he catches her as she flings herself at him and twirls her around. Something that has been bugging her, like a jagged piece of glass tearing at her insides, is crushed to dust. She feels at home.

            “You’re in so much trouble,” he laughs into her ear, “what happened to no quests?”

            She pulls back, smiling, “Duty calls.”

            “I’m so glad you said that,” he says sheepishly, “because – “

            “What did you do this time?” she demands.

            “There was this thing with Apollo, but it’s all taken care of – “

            “No quests!”

            “Oh yeah, like you followed _that_ rule,” he says, “and I wasn’t technically apart of the quest. I just – helped.”

            “Percy!”

          _ **xi.**_   ** _i tried to write it down_**

****

They graduate, Annabeth barely surviving the make up work, but it’s worth it when Percy hoots and hollers her name when she walks.

            Afterwards she kisses him in front of all her teachers and classmates, and he musses his hair. When he puts his arms around her, every single doubt about their future melts away.

            She had put the drawing he had given her in her bra as to keep it close, and she can see the edge of his sticking out of his pocket. They’re things to hold on to, things to remind themselves that they were _alive_. That they were _here_. That they _mattered_.

            Moments like these too, with her Father’s proud smile and Percy’s arm around her shoulders.

            _Moments to hold on to._

**_xii. but i could never find the pen_ **

****

            They get an apartment together in New Rome, because (while it hadn’t occurred to her) all the rest of her close friends are a year or more _younger_ than them. The thought of sharing a room with a stranger was despicable.

            It’s a tiny little thing. Their bed barely fits, but the cover is blue, but the closet is more than enough room for their clothes. Neither of them has been into fashion, thank the gods.

            The bathroom has a toilet, shower, and a sink, and just enough room to stand. They painted those walls blue too.

            The kitchenette is cramped and the oven hardly ever works and the fridge is always empty – their living room overflowing with a beat up couch and two desks – but to Annabeth it’s perfect.

            She puts her drawing in her binder with her schoolwork, and watches Percy become the star student in Marine Biology. They make dinner together, she steals his sweatshirts, and they watch crappy movies on their crappy couch with their crappy TV, and she _loves_ it.

            That is, until he wakes up one night and nearly takes her head off with Riptide. Weapons weren’t allowed inside the city, but Percy had somehow snuck his pen and Annabeth’s new sword in. (Her sword disguised itself as a pendant on her camp necklace when it was not in use.) Both of them didn’t feel safe without it, despite the fact that New Rome was _perfectly_ safe. In theory at least.

            He’s shaking and screaming something about Arachne until she manages to calm him down, and then he notices the cut he’s left on her cheek with his blade. He hadn’t had a nightmare in weeks, and is shaking when he’s brought to.

            “I hurt you,” he gasps, “I – I” he stumbles off, and she hears a door slam. She doesn’t know whether to follow him or give him a space, and decides that _damn it_ she’s going after him, when he comes back, sword less and pen less.

            “I told him – I gave it up, and said it had reappeared back in my pocket,” he said, closing his eyes, “It was a stupid idea not to have it with me.”

            “I’m fine,” she says, and he crosses the room to get a look at the cut on her cheek.

            He crosses over to the cabinet and gives her some nectar, while cleaning the wound. His shoulders are tense, his eyes angry, and she can practically _feel_ the self hatred.

            “Don’t blame yourself,” she snaps, annoyed and she doesn’t know why.

            “I have perfect reason to blame myself,” he huffs, and she flicks him in the nose.

           “No you don’t. You didn’t even do any real damage.”

            “But what if I had?”

            “You didn’t,” she says firmly, “that’s what matters.”

            “Is it?” he clenches his fist, and she downs the nectar, feeling it doing it work. It’s changed it’s taste, and now it tastes like the chocolate chip cookies Percy makes for her when she’s sad.

            “You can’t keep thinking about what ifs,” she says surely, “it’ll just make you miserable.”

            “Annabeth my entire life has been a what if.”

            “We are not playing this game.”

            “What game?”

            “The – the what if game. Because I’m going to win.”       

            “Oh yeah?” he mad now, and she is to. They’ve had a billion arguments like this, when they were younger mostly, and he got under her nerves like no other.

            “What if,” she spat, “what if I just let go that day.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “You were holding on to me,” there is enough venom in her voice to kill a small pig she thinks, and she isn’t sure if it’s directed at him or at herself, “ _what if_ I let go, and I fell by myself?”

            His face goes white.

            “Annabeth – “

            “If you want someone to blame for your nightmares and flashbacks, for our fear of the dark and not having a weapon – blame _me_ ,” her eyes were full of tears now, “I was already going to fall, but I didn’t have to pull you down with me. I did because I was _weak_.”

            “Annabeth – “ he says, a look of horror on his face, and he reaches for her, like he had on that day. This time, she doesn’t let him catch her, and instead goes into the bathroom, slams the door, and stays there until morning, wishing she had her drawing, something to hold onto.

            They don’t talk about it again.

 

**_xiii. i’d give anything to hear, you say it one more time_ **

****

They’re not broken, she convinces herself, just out of alignment. They fall asleep on opposite ends of the bed, but wake up tangled together. They kiss, they have sex – like they’re falling apart.

            She’s terrified. She’s scared that she’s losing him, losing herself, and her performance in school begins to slip. She’s convinced he’s going to leave her. Why wouldn’t he? After the fight. She had taken to calling it that in her head, _The Fight_ , because she didn’t really think any other fight mattered.

            He stays polite, cordial, but she’s falling apart and all she wants is for him to hold her.

            That’s when she has her first flashback. They had always been Percy’s burden, she had been plagued with nightmares, but they’re in the middle of having lunch when everything just – _goes_.

            It’s the moment when everything was black, when she couldn’t see but somehow _knew_ Percy wasn’t beside her.

            “Percy?” she cries, “Percy? Percy why’d you leave?” she’s lost in the dark, a shadow, and she’s shaking, shaking, shaking.

            She reaches blindly for something, and finds a pair of warm hands, and a familiar voice, _“Annabeth,”_ he whispers, _“I’m right here.”_

“Don’t leave,” she sobs.

            That night, he hangs up the drawing she’d made for him in their living room, in a little picture frame. He takes a sharpie and writes _SO CAN WE_ in his messy handwriting, and then comes and holds her closely.

            “We’re done falling,” he promises, and she doesn’t know if he means that they’re done falling into hell, or they’re done falling apart, but she feels a little better.

 

**_xiv. that the universe was made – just to be seen by my eyes_ **

****

Annabeth hangs up her drawing right beneath his and writes _I love you_ on it, because she wants him to look at it and realize that she never wants to be without him. It’s a painful thought enough, parting from him.

            The smell of the sea, his green eyes, the way he burned the toast every morning but made _great_ cups of coffee, the way he made her pancakes every Saturday because _Saturday is pancake day Annabeth._ She’s so dedicated to him that it scares her, but somehow, it also feels right.

            They weren’t gods. They weren’t like their parents. They may be broken in more ways than she could count, but they were _going_ to make it work. _So can we._

“So can we,” she repeats aloud as she stares at the drawings, “So can we.”

  _ **xx.**_ ** _i couldn’t help but ask, you to say it all again_**

****

Her Mother, in the end, are the ones who give her the funds to build a house. They’re both offered pretty jobs in New York when they’re finished with college, Percy working with sea animals, and Annabeth at an architecture firm. They’re planning on moving into an apartment in the city, one that doesn’t really upgrade, but she’s okay with that.

            That is, until her Mother comes to the door and hands her a check. Annabeth stares at Athena in bafflement in the doorway of their old apartment, which is now filled with boxes.

            “Annabeth?” Percy calls. “Who’s there?”

            She doesn’t answer. She looks down at the check again, and back up at her Mother.

            “I realize,” her Mother says, in that cold proud voice Athena always had, “I realize that it was you Annabeth, who brought peace to the two camps. Without you’re help, we would still be in ruins. I thought you deserved a reward for your troubles.”

            “But this is -” Annabeth stares down at the check in bafflement.

            “Enough money to build that house you’ve been raving about,” Athena says surely, “build that house Annabeth, and make me proud.”

            She disappeared in a puff of smoke, which was tad bit overdramatic, but Annabeth didn’t care as she was now gleefully running towards Percy, waving the check frantically in the air.

            “We can do it!” she shouts, looking at the house drawing, “We can build it!”

 

**_xxi. i tried to write down_ **

****

It took them a while to build their house, but Annabeth didn’t care necessarily. Somehow, Athena had also purchased a plot of land right on the beach for them, even if it was an hour or so drive to her work, she didn’t _care_. In fact, she couldn’t care. She was too happy to care.

            The day it was complete, before Percy got home to see it, she hangs up the two drawings they’d made for each other. _This house,_ she tells herself in awe, _it was this house._

Percy comes home with a whoop and twirls her around, and while she laughs breathlessly, all she can think is – _we made it._

**_xxii. but i could never find the pen_ **

****

They fall into a sort of rhythm; it’s more of a routine than they’ve had their entire lives. She finds that she _loves_ it; she loves every bit of it. Their home had felt like home the moment she stepped inside, because she had designed it – for _them_.

            Their bedroom had floor to ceiling windows, the blue sea flickering into her dreams, which was okay with her, because it reminded her of _Percy_. She’d wake up with his drool on the pillow, her head curled into his side; his arms tangled with her’s, their legs linked together. She loved it, looking up into his sleeping face and realizing that they were going to be _together_. That nobody was going to reach in and take this morning away from her.

            Then she’d have to pee and would gently try to disentangle herself without waking him up, but he’d always wake up anyways.

            When she’d showered and dressed, she’d wake up to find Percy cooking breakfast, pancakes on Saturdays, eggs and toast on Mondays and Wednesdays, smoothies on all the rest of the days.

            They’d eat breakfast at the dining room table, and complain about the days to come, but not really meaning anything because they both loved their jobs.

            She’d get home before him, and usually she’d go for a run, or do some extra work. When he _did_ get home, they’d take a walk on the beach, cook dinner together, watch some random TV show together.

            She’d look at that drawing hanging up in their living room, and think about how they survived. _They did it._ They’d made it here.

 

**_xxiii. with shortness of breath, i’ll explain the infinite_ **

****

Riley Rain Jackson (Percy had picked the middle name) was born on September 17th, and she had a head of dark hair, and green eyes, but Percy said her spirit was all Annabeth’s.

            She shows their daughter their home bit by bit, the kitchen, the bedrooms, the bathrooms, even walks her up and down the beach, bouncing her up and down. She tells her all their stories, even though she knows she’ll have to repeat them when she gets older – in fact, she thinks that she may not tell her all that happened to them.

            She does now, however, and when she stands in front of the piece of paper, she tells Riley the paper’s story.

            “We survived,” she kisses the top of Riley’s head, “and this is how.”

 

**_xxiv. how rare and beautiful it is, to even exist_ **

****

She listens from the doorway, while Percy tells the story of how he and Annabeth met, even though that story has been told so many times that it doesn’t sound real anymore. Their kids (all five of them, dear god what were they thinking) lay sprawled around Jane’s bedroom, looking into Percy’s eyes with rapt attention.

            He’s a good story teller, his voice fills the room warmly, transports them to another place, and it always leaves them clamoring for another tale.

            She tiptoes away, happiness filling her stomach, and looks at the drawings on the wall.

            She smiles as she traces over the faded sharpie letters. The nightmares, nor the flashbacks, aren’t likely to ever go away. But they still made it. They were still here to tell their kids their stories, and hope they grew up into wonderful people.

            _So can we._


End file.
